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By an unusually bipartisan vote of 62-37, the Senate has passed a bill to stabilize the United States Postal Service and mitigate some of the post office's most drastic service cuts. But in the House, the check still is in the mail, despite a looming May 15 deadline for the USPS to begin closing 3,700 post offices and 252 regional processing centers.

The House version of the bill differs substantially from the Senate version, but that is all the more reason to act on it. Once the House bill passes, a conference committee will have to hammer out final legislation.

The Senate version would restore to the USPS more than $11 billion in pension overpayments. That would enable it to address much of its $12 billion debt and finance buyouts of up to 100,000 long-term workers.

The bill would reduce the number of processing center closings from 250 to 125 for at least three years. Perhaps most important, it would reduce the USPS's annual payments for retirees' health care. Current law requires the agency to prepay premiums for 75 years, at a cost of more than $5 billion a year. The USPS is the only federally related agency under such a budget-busting mandate.

Clearly, the Senate proposal is a short-term fix. The USPS responded to its passage by saying it still needs flexibility to close post offices and processing centers.

The House bill proposes a reasonable answer - creation of a commission similar to the Pentagon's Base Closure and Realignment Commission, which would remove politics from closing decisions.

The USPS should agree with a request from a group of senators to move back the May 15 deadline, and the House should act quickly to help stabilize mail service, which remains vital to the economy despite its decline.

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